The Bad Pelicans – Best Of

The Bad Pelicans are a three-piece punk band from Paris, France – a city reknowned for being a very difficult place for touring bands due to an apparent lack of interest from locals in small Indie bands.

 For a band that doesn’t appear to be that old, “Best Of”, we assume is a title chosen with tongue firmly placed in cheek.

What you also soon notice is that all “U”s are replaced with “V”s in the track list. As for why this is we don’t have a clue! The third thing you notice is, like the Beach Boys, they seem to have a fixation on surfing.
Opener “SVRF PVNK” kicks off the album with a singalong slacker intro before it suddenly launches into a hardcore beat, the guitars distort and the vocals remind us of Locust Abortion Technician era Butthole Surfers, with the twisted delayed refrain of “Surf Punk, Surf Punk, Surf Punk”.

“SVMMER TIME” has less surprises around the corner, a very good piece of slacker indie, as is “SVFR” “SVRF SVRF” again hits that Butthole Surfers button. There’s added Cramps-esque echoes on the vocals until things slow down completely in the second half of the song.

A spacey break ensues before kicking back in to hardcore punk.

“COVCH PIZZA” is probably the silliest track here, the vocal lines “I’m 21 and I can’t wipe my own arse” and “It’s couch pizza day” underlining this. A scuzzy and very fun straight up punk song that is surely a live highlight too. “BVDDY BVDS” has a similar feeling to Let’s Wrestle around the time of their “Nursing Home” album.

Closer “PAVLINE MC SHIT” recalls slacker bands like Dinosaur Jr and Milk Music in their slower more spacey moments. It is a real wig out track.
Basically, The Bad Pelicans are great. They have left themselves enough room with this release to be able to go down a few different avenues in the future. This record is all pretty cohesive though – it always sounds like the same band.

You may like this if you are a fan of: early Dinosaur Jr, Milk Music, Butthole Surfers